Becker's Hospital Review: ‘Never Seen Before’: Why Are California Hospitals Taking A Hit?
As hospitals across the U.S. continue to feel financial strain from tightened margins, rising costs and workforce shortages, California has emerged as a hot spot, with rural facilities grappling with bankruptcies, emergency department shutdowns and increased uncertainty regarding their long-term survival. “Hospitals throughout California — and across the country — are facing financial headwinds the likes of which have never been seen before,” a spokesperson for the California Hospital Association said in an Oct. 9 statement shared with Becker’s. (Ashley, 10/9)

LAist: At A Boyle Heights Hospital, ICE Agents Call The Shots, Doctors Say
Doctors at Adventist Health White Memorial hospital in Boyle Heights told LAist that hospital administrators are allowing federal immigration agents to interfere in medical decisions and block doctors from properly treating detainees who need emergency care. (Replogle, 10/9)

Becker's Hospital Review: Inside Stanford’s ‘Goldilocks’ Approach To Health IT Change
In healthcare, innovation often gets the spotlight. But at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health in Palo Alto, Calif., the new chief medical information officer is just as focused on what happens quietly in the background: keeping everything running exactly as clinicians expect. “Stability and predictability are a big part of the systems that we use in healthcare,” Keith Morse, MD, CMIO, told Becker’s. “When doctors show up in the morning and they log into their computers, they need things to work every day like they expect them to work.” (Jeffries, 10/9)

VC Star: California’s Best Nursing Homes Ranked By Newsweek For 2026
California families looking for top-tier elder care now have a new guide to help them choose with more information. Newsweek’s 2026 rankings of America’s Best Nursing Homes highlight standout facilities across the state—from coastal Montecito to inland Modesto—grouped by size to make comparisons easier. (Ward, 10/9)

Los Angeles Times: As AIDS Walk L.A. Nears, Phill Wilson Stays Hopeful In Dark Times
The year was 1987. Phill Wilson was 31, a recent transplant to L.A. from his hometown of Chicago. A mysterious infection that weakened its hosts’ immune systems was killing people at a terrifying rate, while the Reagan administration downplayed and openly joked about the disease. Some major news outlets initially wrote off the emerging epidemic as a “gay plague,” insinuating that other Americans didn’t need to worry about it. Wilson’s doctor told him that he was HIV-positive, had six months to live and that he should get his affairs in order. Instead, Wilson decided to “focus on the living.” (Beason, 10/10)

Los Angeles Times: SoCal Woman Convicted Of Murder For Delivering Fatal Butt Implants 
A Riverside County woman known as “the butt lady” has been convicted of murder after a second client — a TV actor living in Malibu — died from silicone injections she administered, authorities said. Last year, Libby Adame was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and practicing medicine without a certification for giving 26-year-old Karissa Rajpaul a fatal silicone butt injection in Sherman Oaks in 2019. But the conviction did not stop her from continuing to perform unauthorized procedures in California, prosecutors said. (Harter, 10/9)

Fierce Healthcare: Newly Passed California Laws Tackle Prior Authorization, Private Equity In Care And More
Changes to prior authorization, charity care screening and corporate influence in medicine are on the way for Californian healthcare organizations. Among the dozens of bills signed this week by Gov. Gavin Newsom ahead of an Oct. 12 deadline were several outlining new requirements or broader enforcement of healthcare practices. (Muoio, 10/9)

The Sacramento Bee: She's A Central Valley Doctor. Why Did Lawmaker Skip CA Votes On Pesticide Bills?
Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, D-Delano, has made improving health care one of her top priorities since she was elected to the California Legislature in 2022. Bains works as a family doctor in Kern County, an area with some of the worst industrial air pollution in the state and country. (Nixon, 10/9)

Capital & Main: California Joins New York In Trying To Fill A Void On Worker Protections
California appears poised to become one of the first states in the nation to take over the job of protecting its workers — a role the Trump administration has essentially abdicated. But the Golden State’s lawyers will probably have to win in court before that process actually begins. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signing of Assembly Bill 288 in September effectively preempts federal law, allowing California workers and organizers to bring workplace complaints or charges directly to a state-run agency and sidestep the dysfunctional National Labor Relations Board. (Kreidler, 10/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: Family Of Teen Who Died After Surgery Sues John Muir, Stanford
The helicopter carrying Amin Noroozi landed at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek less than an hour after the 17-year-old broke his neck while swimming in the ocean. Amin, a varsity football player, track and field athlete and wrestler at Acalanes High School, had lost feeling below his chest. But after an emergency surgery to stabilize his spine on April 13, his parents and younger sister said he moved a finger, and indicated he could sense a touch on his leg. (Gafni and Dizikes, 10/9)

Newsweek: Judge Denies Trump Admin Attempt To Pause Medicaid Case Amid Shutdown
A district court judge on Wednesday denied the Trump administration's request to halt a lawsuit over its proposed Medicaid cuts to Planned Parenthood during the current shutdown of the federal government. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sought a motion for a stay in the proceedings because the Appropriations Act funding the Department of Justice and the majority of other executive agencies lapsed when the government shut down on September 30. (Giella, 10/9)

VC Star: Gold Coast Health Plan Enters Medicare Waters In Ventura County
A $1.1 billion public health plan that provides Medi-Cal health insurance to nearly 1 of 3 Ventura County residents is diving into new waters: Medicare. (Kisken, 10/9)

Berkeleyside: Berkeley’s 911 Center Struggles To Hire Enough Dispatchers
The dispatch center that handles 911 and other emergency calls in Berkeley hit a low point of staffing this year, at one point running on just a third of the dispatchers it is supposed to have, according to a city report. The nadir is just the latest chapter in a long-running staff shortage that has cost the city about $1 million in overtime every year since well before the COVID pandemic, when recruitment for city workers became even more of a challenge. (Gecan, 10/9)

LAist: New UCLA Data Shows Wildfires Hurt Our Health And Our Wallets
The findings of the 2024 California Health Interview Survey, which has just been released, show that nearly 14 million adults personally experienced a wildfire or were exposed to smoke from one. The data only covers between 2022 and 2024, so it does not include the January fires. However, the responses show how blazes are detrimental to many aspects of our health. (Hernandez, 10/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: Elon Musk Is Quietly Expanding In The Bay Area Again, Starting With Neuralink
Elon Musk’s brain-implant startup Neuralink has leased a vacant building in South San Francisco, marking a fresh sign of the billionaire’s renewed interest in the Bay Area tech scene. The 144,000-square-foot property at 499 Forbes Boulevard had been vacant since 2023, after biotech firm InterVenn Biosciences pulled out of its lease amid an industry downturn, according to a report by the Business Times. The lease adds to a growing Bay Area presence for Musk, who moved several of his companies to Texas after criticizing California’s business climate during the pandemic. (Vaziri, 10/9)

AP: Palisades Fire Suspect To Remain Jailed Because Of Mental Health Concerns 
A federal judge in Florida ordered the man charged in California’s deadly Palisades Fire to remain jailed Thursday after a prosecutor said he had traits of an arsonist and his family had worried about his declining mental state. In ordering Jonathan Rinderknecht to be kept in detention, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathan Hill said he had concerns about the suspect’s mental health and his ability to get to California for future court hearings. (Schneider and Weber, 10/9)

CalMatters: This California City Will Feel The Government Shutdown More Than Any Other. Here's Why
San Diego County is bracing for missed paychecks and the possibility of a run on food banks as the federal shutdown extends into its second week. (Brennan, 10/9)

Military.com: Food Pantry Visits From Military Families Climb Over 30% Since Government Shutdown Began 
The government shutdown has surpassed one week and has put federal workers and military families in a financial bind, with food pantries in some portions of the country experiencing 30% upticks in traffic. “Starting last week at our normal food operations, we saw an increase in demand,” Dorene Ocamb, chief development and brand officer of ASYMCA, told Military.com. “As a result, we ran out of food a little more quickly than normal. We had about a 34% increase in Killeen, Texas, which was the first sort of food distribution after the shutdown happened. (Mordowanec, 10/9)

AP: RFK Jr. Links Tylenol, Autism And Circumcision Without Proof
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Thursday reasserted the unproven link between the pain reliever Tylenol and autism, and suggested people who opposed the theory were motivated by hatred for President Donald Trump. During a meeting with Trump and the Cabinet, Kennedy reiterated the connection, even while noting there was no medical proof to substantiate the claim. He also mistakenly described a pregnant woman’s anatomy and linked autism to circumcision. (Beaumont and Ungar, 10/9)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Is California’s Most Politically Aggressive Labor Union Finally Playing Defense?
A new ballot measure, filed by the California Hospital Association, targets large healthcare unions such as SEIU local United Healthcare Workers West (UHW), claiming the unions’ spending on harmful ballot measures has diminished the quality of patient care and threatened healthcare workers’ jobs. (Kerry Jackson, 10/9)

CalMatters: 'Carrying Without Fear' While Carrying A Baby: Pregnant Californians Deserve More Maternity Options
In California, a woman dies every five days on average, either during or after childbirth, but Black mothers are nearly four times more likely to die than others. African Americans account for 5% of pregnancies but 21% of pregnancy-related deaths. (Erica Moore-Smith, 10/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: President Trump’s War On Gender-Affirming Care Is A Huge Mistake
When I go to the doctor, I expect to be offered treatment options that are most likely to help. You might imagine we all do. But that is changing. Last month, the Trump administration announced a ban on coverage of gender-affirming care for millions of federal employees, which takes effect in 2026. This move follows months of abrupt, politically motivated terminations of research studies that have gutted the science that informs our health care. (Heidi Moseson, 10/6)

Los Angeles Times: Autism Is Not Your Enemy
I always knew I was different, long before I knew I was autistic. As a child, I was relentlessly curious, fascinated by patterns and drawn to mathematics with its abstract rules and perfect logic. Rules gave me structure, and I treated them as absolute. Math was predictable; people were another story. They were like a puzzle that I couldn’t solve. (Daniel L. Reinholz, 10/8)